Covid-19 made my solar panel installation business stronger
Last month was the biggest sales month in our history. Here are three lessons I’ve learned.
Record low solar PPAs in the Southwest mean ‘carbon capture is not going to save coal plants’
Recently approved solar PPAs could spell trouble for proponents of retrofitting the state’s San Juan Generating Station to capture the coal-fired plant’s carbon dioxide emissions.
Morning brief: Safe harbor for ITC extended, Dems push FERC to reject anti-net metering petition
Also in the brief: Virginia agency aims to make solar “faster, easier and more affordable,” plus Community Choice Energy providers.
PVEL solar module scorecard: In a rush to innovate, some manufacturers ‘overlooked basic quality control’
PV Evolution Labs (PVEL), a test lab for the downstream solar market, just published its PV Module Reliability Scorecard. The lab notes the high level of innovation in the solar module industry and namechecks the market’s reliability leaders — but also observed a resurgence of known failure mechanisms — such as PID.
Alliant Energy looks to add 675 MW of PV and quadruple Wisconsin’s solar capacity
The company has filed a Certificate of Authority application with state regulators for a 675 MW portfolio of solar projects, the first step in the company’s larger goal of 1,000 MW of solar in Wisconsin by 2023.
It may be safe to put PV panels in landfills, but that doesn’t mean we should
According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), health risks from lead in crystalline silicon PV panels are one order of magnitude — or about one-tenth — below the risk levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Morning Brief: Nuclear fusion startup raises $84 million from Temasek and Equinor
Also in the brief: Green hydrogen in Denmark, North Dakota solar on tribal lands, Lime Rock New Energy raises $600 million in growth equity focused on renewable energy tech.
The solar industry and consumers both lose with federal ‘MOPR’ rule
Electricity consumers would pay at least $1.1 billion more per year in the 13-state PJM grid region, says a new report, while 8.5 GW of capacity sales from new solar developments would be excluded from the capacity market, and corporate solar purchase agreements could cost 50% more — if courts uphold a federal regulation known as “MOPR.”
Used EV batteries for large-scale solar energy storage
MIT scientists have suggested that used electric vehicle batteries could offer a more viable business case than purpose-built systems for the storage of grid-scale solar power in California. Such ‘second life’ EV batteries, may cost only 60% of their original purchase price to deploy and can be effectively aggregated for industrial scale storage even if they have declined to 80% of their original capacity.
RFP issued for Santa Barbara School District microgrid projects
As part of a collaborative effort with Sage Energy Consulting, the district has issued an RFP for 4.5 MW of solar capacity and 6 MWh of storage across 15 sites.
